Chrome

Looking Back: What Was Happening Ten Years Ago?

Glyn Moody — Tue, 27 Feb 2018 15:48:52 +0000

That was then, this is now: what's next for the Open Source world?

A decade passes so quickly. And yet, ten years for open source is half its life. How have things changed in those ten years? So much has happened in this fast-moving and exciting world, it's hard to remember. But we're in luck. The continuing availability of Linux Journal's past issues and website means we have a kind of time capsule that shows us how things were, and how we saw them.

Ten years ago, I was writing a regular column for Linux Journal, much like this one. Looking through the 80 or so posts from that time reveals a world very different from the one we inhabit today. The biggest change from then to now can be summed up in a word: Microsoft. A decade back, Microsoft towered over the world of computing like no other company. More important, it (rightly) saw open source as a threat and took continuing, wide-ranging action to weaken it in every way it could.

Its general strategy was to spread FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). At every turn, it sought to question the capability and viability of open source. It even tried to convince the world that we no longer needed to talk about free software and open source—anyone remember "mixed source"?

Alongside general mud-flinging, Microsoft's weapon of choice to undermine and thwart open source was a claim of massive patent infringement across the entire ecosystem. The company asserted that the Linux kernel violated 42 of its patents; free software graphical interfaces another 65; the OpenOffice.org suite of programs, 45; and assorted other free software 83 more. The strategy was two-fold: first to squeeze licensing fees from companies that were using open source, and second, perhaps even more important, to paint open source as little more than a pale imitation of Microsoft's original and brilliant ideas.

The patent battle rumbled on for years. And although it did generate considerable revenues for the company, it failed dismally in its aim to discredit free software.

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CodeLathe FileCloud Google Chrome Extension

James Gray — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 12:00:00 +0000

by James Gray

Nearly everyone in today's enterprises is connected throughout the day to a web browser, of which anywhere from 44–71% are Google Chrome. Seeking to make this vast number of users' work more productive is developer CodeLathe, whose new "amazingly easy-to-use" FileCloud extension for Google Chrome enables users to save documents, images and screen captures directly from Chrome to CodeLathe's FileCloud private cloud file-sharing solution.

When using the FileCloud for Chrome extension, FileCloud users now can save and share information easily while working within Chrome by selecting content, opening the right-click context menu in Chrome and then selecting the "Save to FileCloud" option. The FileCloud Chrome extension is particularly useful for teams who work closely together in areas like product and market research, web design and others.

FileCloud client apps are available for common desktop and mobile platforms including Linux, Mac, iOS, Android, Windows, Windows Phone 8 and now Chrome.

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Non-Linux FOSS: Chrome, for One

Shawn Powers — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 15:20:20 +0000

by Shawn Powers

When I use OS X, I really like the Fluid app for making standalone Web applications. The problem is, Fluid isn't free unless you want the basic version. I don't mind paying for an application (and I did pay for Fluid), but it seems like something as simple as a single site browser shouldn't be something that costs money.

Thankfully, the folks at Epichrome feel the same way. They've created an open-source project at GitHub that allows you to create standalone OS X applications that use Chrome in order to provide a single site browser.

You can customize the way the app looks, give it a custom app icon and even register it as a browser on the system, so you can have it open when clicking on a specific Web site from inside your Web browser. I personally use it for my BirdCam, but it's a great way to turn any Web site into an "app" that you can launch from your dock.

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Chrome-Colored Parakeets

Shawn Powers — Tue, 05 May 2015 14:00:00 +0000

by Shawn Powers

I personally like Google's Chrome interface. It's simple, fast, elegant and did I mention fast? Unfortunately, I don't like how locked down the Chrome OS is on a Chromebook, nor do I like its total dependence on Google. I also don't like the lack of ability to install Chrome easily on generic hardware. Thankfully, Budgie is here to help.

If you like the simplicity and speed of the Chrome interface, but want a full-blown system underneath that deceptively simple GUI, I urge you to give Budgie a try. You either can download the Evolve-OS, or just install the PPA into a standard Ubuntu system. I simply typed:


sudo apt-add-repository ppa:evolve-os/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install budgie-desktop

Then log out, and when logging in, choose the Budgie desktop instead of Unity. You'll find a very Chrome-like interface but on top of a full-blown Linux system instead of Chrome! The preferences are fairly simplistic, but the entire interface is designed to get out of the way and let you work. Due to its blazing-fast speed and ease of use, the Budgie Desktop is this month's Editors' Choice. Give it a try today!

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Non-Linux FOSS: Chrome Desktop Applications

Shawn Powers — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 20:19:54 +0000

by Shawn Powers

Hopefully by the time you're reading this, Chrome Desktop Applications will be available for Linux. In the meantime, this is a Windows treat. The ability to make a "single-purpose" browser has been around Chrome/Chromium for a long time, but with the new breed of Chrome Applications, the browser is a base for a standalone, off-line application. According to Google, the new Chrome apps will have the following features:

Work off-line: keep working or playing, even when you don't have an Internet connection.
More app, less Chrome: no tabs, buttons or text boxes.
Connect to the cloud: access and save the documents locally and in the cloud.
Desktop notifications: you can get reminders, updates and even take action, right from the notification center.
Local device support: interact with your USB, Bluetooth and other devices.
Automatic updates: apps update silently (unless permissions change).
Chrome App Launcher: appears on the taskbar when you install your first new Chrome App.

Chrome dabbles with off-line abilities with many of its current Web applications, but with the new Chrome Apps, this should go to an entire new level. If the hype is correct, these should be local applications, not just Web apps with off-line hooks. Also, although Chrome Apps are Windows-only today, Google promises Linux support in the future.

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Chrome Extensions

Reuven Lerner — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 16:46:35 +0000

by Reuven Lerner

Create applications inside the Chrome browser with standard Web technologies: HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

Back when Netscape was a rising star in the high-tech world, cofounder Marc Andreessen announced that the browser was a new form of operating system, within which people could create applications. Rather than writing apps for Windows, or the Macintosh, or even Linux (a laughable idea back then), we would write them for the browser. This seemed like a far-fetched idea at the time, but it obviously has become the case. Today, it is the norm to speak of a "Web application", meaning something that is delivered via the browser, but whose code sits on a server. This is what I think of when someone says "Web application", and it has been a while since I really thought seriously about even writing a desktop application.

That said, there's certainly an advantage to working with desktop applications. They work more smoothly with other applications; they can interact with the filesystem, and they just have a more natural look and feel. This is changing, especially given the capabilities that HTML5 brings to the table and the ways that browsers are becoming integrated into the overall user experience, rather than being one of many applications running on the computer.

What I really like is the relative simplicity of creating a Web application, including using the technologies that are the Web's bread and butter—HTML, CSS and JavaScript—and which I use, at least for client-side development, on a day-to-day basis.

Firefox has offered developers the chance to write extensions for a long time. However, I must admit that I wasn't thrilled with the idea of learning an entirely new language and paradigm (Mozilla's XUL). The Greasemonkey extension for Firefox has long been a favorite of mine, making it possible for me to make client-side changes and customizations to Web sites of all sorts. But, it wasn't completely integrated into the browser, and it required installation and configuration beyond what most people are willing to accept.

Extensions in Google Chrome (or the open-source Chromium), by contrast, use Web technologies and are built in to the browser, making it truly possible to extend the browser in a number of different ways by loading packages of HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

This month, I look at the different types of extensions you can write with Chrome and consider when it's better to write an extension than a Web application, as well as show how to develop a simple extension of your own.

Creating an Extension

As I mentioned previously, a Chrome extension is a combination of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. There are different types of extensions; right now, let's concentrate on a browser extension, which puts an icon in the top-right corner of the browser, which produces a pop-up and also can interact with the contents of the browser window.

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Switching to Chrom(ium)

Reuven Lerner — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:00:00 +0000

by Reuven Lerner

For someone who works with, writes about and teaches cutting-edge technologies, I tend to be a bit of a laggard when adopting new ones. I upgrade my laptop and servers very conservatively. I got my first smartphone just earlier this year. I still use the Apache HTTP server, even though I know that nginx is a bit faster. And until recently, Mozilla's Firefox was my default browser.

Firefox is a remarkable piece of software, and it has been a massive success by any measure. It was around before and during Netscape's IPO, which marked the start of the IPO-crazy dot-com era. I then watched as it declined as a company, turning its flagship product (Firefox) into an open-source project before disappearing.

I used Firefox from its first pre-release versions and have been a loyal user ever since. This was not only because Firefox generally adhered to and promoted standards, but also because of the wide variety of plugins and extensions available for it. As a Web developer, I found that a combination of plugins—from Firebug to the aptly named Web developer to Tamper Data—gave me enormous power and flexibility when developing, debugging and working on Web applications.

During the past year, I've discovered that a very large number of non-techies have switched browsers. But, they haven't been switching to Firefox. Rather, they've been switching to Chrome, a relatively new browser whose development is sponsored by Google. I've certainly used Chrome through the years, and I've generally been impressed by its abilities. But for a long time, some combination of nostalgia and comfort with Firefox's tools kept me from switching.

Well, no more. As of recently, Google Chrome has become my browser of choice. In this article, I describe a bit about Chrome and why I've switched, both for personal use and browsing, and in my Web development work. In a future article, I'll explain how to write extensions for Chrome. One of the nice things about Chrome is that writing extensions is extremely easy and exclusively uses Web technologies (for example HTML, CSS and JavaScript).

I should make it clear before I continue that Chrome is not an open-source product. It is free-as-in-beer, but it isn't released under an open-source license. That said, there are several reasons why open-source advocates should take a look at Chrome. First, it is rapidly growing in popularity, with many developers and users alike adopting it. Just as my clients expect that I'll test Web applications against IE, they now expect that I'll test applications against Chrome. If you aren't including Chrome in your testing, you might be missing some issues in your site's design or functionality.

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